Posthumous Success: Legendary Artists

Do you feel underappreciated by your employer? Do your friends not realise your full potential? Don’t worry, you could just be an untapped talent just like Vincent Van Gogh or Edgar Allan Poe.

And if so, even when the last nail is banged in your coffin lid, your work will still stand a chance of being celebrated for centuries to come.

It’s happened before and it can happen again. Some of the biggest legends of the culture world only flourished posthumously.

The lack of success during their lives is down to multiple factors: some, like Spanish Renaissance painter El Greco, were years ahead of their time and only appreciated once the world had caught up; others like Emily Dickinson are examples of outsider art, those who have had little or no contact with the art world, and whose raw talent is only discovered after their death.

The moral of this story is clear: don’t give up on those doodles and don’t throw your lovey dovey poems in the bin. Keep them all in a safe place, for who knows who might invest an interest once you’re gone...

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William Blake (1757-1827)
Poet, painter and printmaker, Blake broke from the Rationalism of his time and his peers thought him insane. Since the arrival of Romanticism he was seen in a different light.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
Poe, who is seen today as the creator of the detective story, spent most of his life struggling to make ends meet. Orphaned at a young age and deleted from his guardian's will, he tried to make a living solely from being an author. Before his death at just 40, Poe's life was littered with alcoholism, poverty and the death of his young wife from Tuberculosis.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
American poet Dickinson lived a very reclusive life, often unwilling to leave the house. Only around 10 poems were published during Dickinson's lifetime, after her death her sister found some 1800 more hidden away and set about publishing them.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
During his lifetime Kafka couldn't live by his earnings as an author, working as an insurance officer and in an asbestos factory. Now he is seen as one of the best writers of 20th century and is most famous for The Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Despite giving up work as a stockbroker to concentrate on his art, Gauguin's work only became popular 40 years after his death. A key figure in the Symbolist movement, he is most famous for his depictions of the Tahitian people, where he settled after travelling the world.
Employees adjust a painting by Paul Gauguin entitled Deux Femmes at Sotheby's, London.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Henry Darger (1892-1973)
Darger, a recluse whose work was discovered by his landlords shortly before his death, is the perfect example of outsider art. There are only three known photographs of Darger and little is known about his private life, the documentary In the Realms of the Unreal directed by Jessica Yu attempts to unearth some information.
Works (left to right) Cat Headed Blengian and Spangled Winged Tuskorhorian Blengin, on display at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Author and poet among many other things, Thoreau's work is highly regarded to this day. Ahead of his time perhaps, he is most famous for Walden, an account of man's natural surroundings, and Civil Disobedience, which called for a just state.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675)
The Dutch Baroque painter was largely unknown until historians Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger drew attention to his work nearly 200 years after his death. He is now seen as a major figure in the Dutch Golden Age.
The image shows Christ in the House of Martha and Mary on display at The National Gallery, London.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

El Greco (1541-1614)
Domenikos Theotokopoulos, who was born in Crete, was a Spanish Renaissance painter known as El Greco. His work, which was heavily influenced by Byzantine art, was largely dismissed by art critics at the time and only gained popularity during 18th Century Romanticism.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
An American poet and novelist, Plath lived a reportedly troubled life and committed suicide in 1861. She was the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize posthumously, for her work entitled The Collected Poems.
PHOTO: PA Pictures

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
Van Gogh only sold 2 paintings during his lifetime before he committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest at 37. Since his death his work has become highly influential and is owned by galleries and private collectors across the globe. His Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for $82.5million in 1990.
PHOTO: Fiona Hanson/PA Wire

Kate Chopin (1851-1904)
One of the first feminist authors of the 20th century, her work was published during her legacy but her legacy grew considerably after her death.
PHOTO: Penguin